Biography
Amy Rauch is an associate in the Dallas office of Cokinos | Young. Amy’s practice focuses primarily on insurance coverage issues. In that regard, she regularly provides insurance advice to clients in the construction industry, including contractors, owners, and subcontractors. This includes advising clients on insurance and indemnity provisions in contract documents at the outset of their projects to help them manage and transfer risk, as well as advising them in disputes with their insurance companies following a claim. She frequently leads the pursuit of defense and indemnity from additional insured carriers on behalf of general contractor and subcontractor clients and has successfully obtained a defense from one or more additional insured carriers for those clients in multiple construction defect and employee injury cases.
However, Amy also provides insurance coverage advice to individuals and businesses outside of the construction context to help ensure that their insurers honor their obligations under a wide range of insurance policies, including professional liability policies, crime policies, inland marine policies, commercial property and auto policies, and homeowners policies.
In addition, she co-authored the Legal Foundations of Professional Liability article in Professional Liability Insurance, which was published by International Risk Management Institute in 2019, and the “Construction Update” article for the State Bar of Texas 18th Annual Advanced Insurance Law CLE (Webcast) on October 1, 2021.
Education
- Southern Methodist University, Dedman School of Law – J.D., cum laude, 2015
– Articles Editor, SMU Law Review - Ohio State University – B.A., magna cum laude, 2007
Representative Experience
- Developed arguments and acted as primary briefing attorney for a motion for partial summary judgment on the duty to defend in a Texas state court declaratory judgment action filed by a commercial general liability (CGL) carrier against its named insured subcontractor, in which the carrier sought a declaration that it had no duty to defend or indemnify its insured in the underlying construction defect lawsuit. The court found that the carrier had a duty to defend the subcontractor, which resulted in the carrier’s participation in settling the underlying claims against the subcontractor and the subcontractor’s dismissal from the underlying lawsuit, as well as the dismissal of the state court declaratory judgment action. In connection with that same subcontractor and underlying lawsuit, developed arguments and acted as primary briefing attorney for a motion to dismiss the claims filed by the general contractor’s CGL carrier against the subcontractor in a federal declaratory judgment action. The court granted the subcontractor’s motion to dismiss in early 2022, ending the subcontractor’s involvement in the federal declaratory judgment action.
- Work with construction clients to ensure that the clients’ own insurance carriers and their additional insured carriers are properly defending their insureds and contributing to settlement of covered property damage and bodily injury claims.
- Work with homeowners to ensure that insurance carriers are properly paying first party claims or defending liability claims under homeowners policies.
- Developed arguments and acted as primary briefing attorney on lawsuit against carrier that denied coverage under client’s first-party property policy for Hurricane Harvey loss. Case resulted in seven figure settlement for client.
Memberships & Affiliations
- Dallas Bar Association: Construction Law, Tort & Insurance Practice Sections
- Dallas Young Lawyers Association
- State Bar of Texas: Construction Law Section and Insurance Law Section
Admissions
- State Bar of Texas
- United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
- United States District Courts: Northern, Eastern, Southern & Western Districts of Texas